chic geek?
Its been a really long time, my bad. Obviously, i'm overdue to tell a lot. At the moment, i'm thinking it might be best to break it all down into 3 posts... But, we'll see if i still think that by the end of all this. The truth is, i've had several journal entries knocking around in my head for a while now. I just haven't taken the time to spit 'em out. So, be careful what you ask for. These could get long.
Actually, one of the coolest things i've done since i've lived here happened this week...wednesday, i believe it was. Anyway, the day started off pretty normal--go to work, blah blah blah. But, after that, we had this rooftop party at this still-under-construction condo development on the Lower East Side (LES) called "Blue" (bluecondonyc.com--actually, i have to interject here with how appalled i am at the disgraceful adulteration of one of dear Etta's finest works on their website...if you click through, you'll here it, its despicable)... Anyway, the party was OK. Let me break it down for you...
It was cool because:
- there was an open bar
- there was free food from a very good chef (Chef Iacopo Falai of Falai Panetteria). And,
- I got a chuckle out of all the holier-than-thou types who thought they were just too good to have to stand in the elevator line on the street outside--and subsequently walked right to the front--only to be kindly directed to the end of the line. Even funnier was the fact that i did not have to wait in said line.
It was uncool because:
- there were WAAY too many people there
- when free food and/or drinks involved, people inevitably lose all sentient thought and revert to knuckle-dragging and ravenous animalistic behavior. It's actually disgusting to watch. Also
- as could likely be deduced from the above, trying to get a drink or taste of food at this gig was completely unbearable. The event was co-sponsored by 10 Cane Rum, so they were making mojitos mostly. The problem was exacerbated by the fact that the bartenders were moving PAINfully slow--squeezing individual slices of lime into each drink, shaking each one individually....OMG: ALL WRONG. This is NOT how you serve this many drinks to this many people...i would've approached the whole thing completely differently...but, alas, i'm just a designer, so making things look pretty is all they really consult me on...heh
Near the end, though, after the open bar was closing up shop (and, what a surprise, most everyone had left by now) the party, in my opinion, actually reached its cool-apex (as i'll so dorkily call it)
Here's why:
- I (re) met a good pal of mine (from work) jon's older brother Brennen. [more on this in a moment], and
- Chef Falai was packing things up and he started pulling out all these food items he'd had tucked away before--for the 8 or 10 of us who were still there cleaning up and/or (me) just standing around. There was this one container he had with a stripe of masking tape on its side with one word scribbled on it. The word was "Katsup"... but lemme tell you: that wasn't like anything I've ever had from a Ketchup bottle before.... WOAH! That stuff was awesome (And i don't even really like Ketchup!). i wish i knew what he had in that junk! Anyway, to go with that, he had all these fresh italian breads he'd baked that morning (!) for the purpose of dipping into the aforementioned "Katsup." WOW. Add to that these almonds coated in cocoa powder...yummm... This is all in addition to the crème brûlée, banana tarts and goat cheese sandwiches all the vultures had been devouring all night. Needless to say, this was all endlessly cool. And, by the end of it, i had two of these fresh Italian "rolls" (whatever! these weren't like any rolls I've ever known about! They were each, like, 12in. in diamater) stuffed in my bag. Anyway, imma eat me some good bread for a few days--but alas: moving on...
....and to the inspiration for this whole entry in the first place:
So, a minute ago, i mentioned meeting again, for the first time, my friend Jon's bro (Brennen--or is it brennon? hell'f i know). It wasn't the meeting of him that was so cool, it was what happened right after that. Well, not RIGHT after that...actually a little....OH dammit, you get the picture...
Brennen and his pals were going to this mysterious-sounding art gallery party down in chinatown. Me and Jay had nothing else on the docket for our wednesday night, so of course we were game. They headed on out, and jon, being the ever-diligent worker he always is, told them we'd catch up later--that he needed to hang around for a little bit just to make sure he wasn't still needed for anything. (Incidentally, i'm glad he did, b/c it wasn't until after this that we discovered what real "Katsup" is.) So anyway, after filling up on all that good food, and strapping two huge roll/loaves to my back, we were off. The trek consisted of an only semi-aimless jaunt through the LES and chinatown. And, on the way there, i entertained myself by getting jon to say "Hi, my name is Jon, what is your name?" in every language i could think of--a skill he's particularly adept at. This never ceases to amuse me. (In case you're wondering, the only one that tripped him up was my request for "Swahili." To which he could only come up with how to say "Hi," and some other Swahilian proverb that, of course, i can't remember).
Anyway, we finally walk up to this place (the CVG gallery? was it? i don't remember), and there's a contingent of no less than 3 people standing at the door--encircled by their red-velvet rope. [PAUSE] Ok. So, this is the point where i'd normally get really nervous and/or just give up and not even try to get in. But, this time, that wasn't the case at all. Ok. [UN-PAUSE] our trio (jon, jason & me) approached theirs (two heavies and a younger girl, clipboard in hand), with Jon in front. [PAUSE] Ok so, you don't know jon. But he's cool. It's weird, we actually first met when he started as an intern at Time Out. He was semi-indirectly subject to me but i didn't actually end up giving him all that much to do....except for this one time--actually, it was almost exactly this time last year--right after our annual Sex issue had come out, and i was painfully behind on my work. So i recruited Jon to help out processing all the images for the feature. Ok, so picture this: An intern sitting at his computer, which was coincidentally (albeit hilariously in this instance) situated directly in view of a pretty busy foot-traffic thoroughfare (that's just a fancy way of saying it was on the way to the kitchen) editing full-screen photographs of completely naked people, male and female, photographed only somewhat-tastefully and performing sex acts. hahah. it was brilliant! Hah, he still gives me hell for asking him to do that. Anyway, Jon handled it swimmingly. he's just got a way with awkward situations. And, 'an awkward situation' was exactly what we'd just happened upon. Ok. [UNPAUSE] So there we were, standing in front of this completely non-descript door, with two men and a baby lady--and their cute little velvet rope. Naturally, Jon took this one upon himself:
"Hi, we're here for the ______ party upstairs in the _____ gallery"
"What's your name?"
"Jon McGrath"
[her: flipping pages...looking, flipping some more...still looking...moving her finger around the page....still looking. Then, again with her finger, pretending to find his name on the list. Then with a slight quiver in her voice:]
"Uh, yeah, you guys are cool."
(Ok, so, one thing you should note here is that the three of us knew FOR A FACT that Jon's name was not on that list. How or why that lady decided to humor us and pretend to find it is completely beyond me. Nonetheless, i attribute this to what i'll call the 'McGrath Factor'--completely inexplicable.
Anyway, we step inside the rope, wait for the doors to open (at the hand of a wrinkle-faced 50s aged asian man, actually) and climb into the elevator. This was one of those really old freight-type elevators--what with strangely closing garage-y doors and a creaky lattice of gates. Altogether: very interesting, i could've spent hours in there just memorizing all the details and signs of age and human interaction, but when we got to the top, obviously, i didn't.
Ok, so, now i'm realizing that i've written these rivers of text above; and i haven't even gotten to the tale of the party yet--which is what i set out to tell in the first place.
Anyway, suffice it to say that this party was very cool; the chic-est i've been to since moving here. After we got off the elevator, we were met by Brennan and his words were: "The worst thing about this party is how many models are in the house." I'd say that summed it up pretty well. I mean really, it was ridiculous. It felt like you were on a hollywood movie set ever once-in-a-while. Actually, that summation is not really that much of a stretch... Lucy Liu was there. Remember, that chick from charlie's angels or whatever.
Yeah, i couldn't believe it either. Jon was, like, hellbent on talking to her. But, i don't know if he did. I didn't really have any desire to. Seeing her there was more than enough for me. I mean, seriously, what would i say if i did? "Uuuuh, you were good at kicking ass in those movies." Yeah: better this time to just see and not be seen; i thought so too.
Anyway, i don't really know what else to tell. The party was really cool. There was all this hip art hanging up all over the place. And, as i've alluded to, there were even more hip people milling around all over the place. And, as with any great party, this one had an open bar as well. I lost count of how many glasses of Shiraz i drank. I did meet this one girl, Jennifer--tall, Jackie O. black hair, and strikingly attractive. She was wearing the reddest lipstick i think i've ever seen. It was weird, she was one of those girls you'd look at from far away and totally get the queen/bitch vibe from. But, after i spoke to her for quite a while, actually, i was happily surprised to learn that she was very warm and kind. Jon swears up-and-down this chick was into me. I say its poppycock. She actually dropped the "BF Bomb" quite early in our conversation (thanks--much appreciated) but she was quite adamant to invite me out to this live "Kountry Karaoke" thing that's happening tonight--down on the LES. I still haven't decided if i'll go. But, she did keep bringing it up and saying how she'd see me there. Whatever.--i'll never understand women.
Actually, one of the coolest things i've done since i've lived here happened this week...wednesday, i believe it was. Anyway, the day started off pretty normal--go to work, blah blah blah. But, after that, we had this rooftop party at this still-under-construction condo development on the Lower East Side (LES) called "Blue" (bluecondonyc.com--actually, i have to interject here with how appalled i am at the disgraceful adulteration of one of dear Etta's finest works on their website...if you click through, you'll here it, its despicable)... Anyway, the party was OK. Let me break it down for you...
It was cool because:
- there was an open bar
- there was free food from a very good chef (Chef Iacopo Falai of Falai Panetteria). And,
- I got a chuckle out of all the holier-than-thou types who thought they were just too good to have to stand in the elevator line on the street outside--and subsequently walked right to the front--only to be kindly directed to the end of the line. Even funnier was the fact that i did not have to wait in said line.
It was uncool because:
- there were WAAY too many people there
- when free food and/or drinks involved, people inevitably lose all sentient thought and revert to knuckle-dragging and ravenous animalistic behavior. It's actually disgusting to watch. Also
- as could likely be deduced from the above, trying to get a drink or taste of food at this gig was completely unbearable. The event was co-sponsored by 10 Cane Rum, so they were making mojitos mostly. The problem was exacerbated by the fact that the bartenders were moving PAINfully slow--squeezing individual slices of lime into each drink, shaking each one individually....OMG: ALL WRONG. This is NOT how you serve this many drinks to this many people...i would've approached the whole thing completely differently...but, alas, i'm just a designer, so making things look pretty is all they really consult me on...heh
Near the end, though, after the open bar was closing up shop (and, what a surprise, most everyone had left by now) the party, in my opinion, actually reached its cool-apex (as i'll so dorkily call it)
Here's why:
- I (re) met a good pal of mine (from work) jon's older brother Brennen. [more on this in a moment], and
- Chef Falai was packing things up and he started pulling out all these food items he'd had tucked away before--for the 8 or 10 of us who were still there cleaning up and/or (me) just standing around. There was this one container he had with a stripe of masking tape on its side with one word scribbled on it. The word was "Katsup"... but lemme tell you: that wasn't like anything I've ever had from a Ketchup bottle before.... WOAH! That stuff was awesome (And i don't even really like Ketchup!). i wish i knew what he had in that junk! Anyway, to go with that, he had all these fresh italian breads he'd baked that morning (!) for the purpose of dipping into the aforementioned "Katsup." WOW. Add to that these almonds coated in cocoa powder...yummm... This is all in addition to the crème brûlée, banana tarts and goat cheese sandwiches all the vultures had been devouring all night. Needless to say, this was all endlessly cool. And, by the end of it, i had two of these fresh Italian "rolls" (whatever! these weren't like any rolls I've ever known about! They were each, like, 12in. in diamater) stuffed in my bag. Anyway, imma eat me some good bread for a few days--but alas: moving on...
....and to the inspiration for this whole entry in the first place:
So, a minute ago, i mentioned meeting again, for the first time, my friend Jon's bro (Brennen--or is it brennon? hell'f i know). It wasn't the meeting of him that was so cool, it was what happened right after that. Well, not RIGHT after that...actually a little....OH dammit, you get the picture...
Brennen and his pals were going to this mysterious-sounding art gallery party down in chinatown. Me and Jay had nothing else on the docket for our wednesday night, so of course we were game. They headed on out, and jon, being the ever-diligent worker he always is, told them we'd catch up later--that he needed to hang around for a little bit just to make sure he wasn't still needed for anything. (Incidentally, i'm glad he did, b/c it wasn't until after this that we discovered what real "Katsup" is.) So anyway, after filling up on all that good food, and strapping two huge roll/loaves to my back, we were off. The trek consisted of an only semi-aimless jaunt through the LES and chinatown. And, on the way there, i entertained myself by getting jon to say "Hi, my name is Jon, what is your name?" in every language i could think of--a skill he's particularly adept at. This never ceases to amuse me. (In case you're wondering, the only one that tripped him up was my request for "Swahili." To which he could only come up with how to say "Hi," and some other Swahilian proverb that, of course, i can't remember).
Anyway, we finally walk up to this place (the CVG gallery? was it? i don't remember), and there's a contingent of no less than 3 people standing at the door--encircled by their red-velvet rope. [PAUSE] Ok. So, this is the point where i'd normally get really nervous and/or just give up and not even try to get in. But, this time, that wasn't the case at all. Ok. [UN-PAUSE] our trio (jon, jason & me) approached theirs (two heavies and a younger girl, clipboard in hand), with Jon in front. [PAUSE] Ok so, you don't know jon. But he's cool. It's weird, we actually first met when he started as an intern at Time Out. He was semi-indirectly subject to me but i didn't actually end up giving him all that much to do....except for this one time--actually, it was almost exactly this time last year--right after our annual Sex issue had come out, and i was painfully behind on my work. So i recruited Jon to help out processing all the images for the feature. Ok, so picture this: An intern sitting at his computer, which was coincidentally (albeit hilariously in this instance) situated directly in view of a pretty busy foot-traffic thoroughfare (that's just a fancy way of saying it was on the way to the kitchen) editing full-screen photographs of completely naked people, male and female, photographed only somewhat-tastefully and performing sex acts. hahah. it was brilliant! Hah, he still gives me hell for asking him to do that. Anyway, Jon handled it swimmingly. he's just got a way with awkward situations. And, 'an awkward situation' was exactly what we'd just happened upon. Ok. [UNPAUSE] So there we were, standing in front of this completely non-descript door, with two men and a baby lady--and their cute little velvet rope. Naturally, Jon took this one upon himself:
"Hi, we're here for the ______ party upstairs in the _____ gallery"
"What's your name?"
"Jon McGrath"
[her: flipping pages...looking, flipping some more...still looking...moving her finger around the page....still looking. Then, again with her finger, pretending to find his name on the list. Then with a slight quiver in her voice:]
"Uh, yeah, you guys are cool."
(Ok, so, one thing you should note here is that the three of us knew FOR A FACT that Jon's name was not on that list. How or why that lady decided to humor us and pretend to find it is completely beyond me. Nonetheless, i attribute this to what i'll call the 'McGrath Factor'--completely inexplicable.
Anyway, we step inside the rope, wait for the doors to open (at the hand of a wrinkle-faced 50s aged asian man, actually) and climb into the elevator. This was one of those really old freight-type elevators--what with strangely closing garage-y doors and a creaky lattice of gates. Altogether: very interesting, i could've spent hours in there just memorizing all the details and signs of age and human interaction, but when we got to the top, obviously, i didn't.
Ok, so, now i'm realizing that i've written these rivers of text above; and i haven't even gotten to the tale of the party yet--which is what i set out to tell in the first place.
Anyway, suffice it to say that this party was very cool; the chic-est i've been to since moving here. After we got off the elevator, we were met by Brennan and his words were: "The worst thing about this party is how many models are in the house." I'd say that summed it up pretty well. I mean really, it was ridiculous. It felt like you were on a hollywood movie set ever once-in-a-while. Actually, that summation is not really that much of a stretch... Lucy Liu was there. Remember, that chick from charlie's angels or whatever.
Yeah, i couldn't believe it either. Jon was, like, hellbent on talking to her. But, i don't know if he did. I didn't really have any desire to. Seeing her there was more than enough for me. I mean, seriously, what would i say if i did? "Uuuuh, you were good at kicking ass in those movies." Yeah: better this time to just see and not be seen; i thought so too.
Anyway, i don't really know what else to tell. The party was really cool. There was all this hip art hanging up all over the place. And, as i've alluded to, there were even more hip people milling around all over the place. And, as with any great party, this one had an open bar as well. I lost count of how many glasses of Shiraz i drank. I did meet this one girl, Jennifer--tall, Jackie O. black hair, and strikingly attractive. She was wearing the reddest lipstick i think i've ever seen. It was weird, she was one of those girls you'd look at from far away and totally get the queen/bitch vibe from. But, after i spoke to her for quite a while, actually, i was happily surprised to learn that she was very warm and kind. Jon swears up-and-down this chick was into me. I say its poppycock. She actually dropped the "BF Bomb" quite early in our conversation (thanks--much appreciated) but she was quite adamant to invite me out to this live "Kountry Karaoke" thing that's happening tonight--down on the LES. I still haven't decided if i'll go. But, she did keep bringing it up and saying how she'd see me there. Whatever.--i'll never understand women.